On Friday, Bitcoin declined and reached $19,095 by the time of writing.

According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin has reached a high of $19,456 and a low of $18,650 over the past 24 hours.

Consequently, Bitcoin's price has increased by 1.7% and closed the session at around $19,250. At the same time, in the first hours of Thursday's trading session, the asset updated three-month lows, falling below $18,200.

Altcoin market

Ethereum, Bitcoin's main rival, started Wednesday's trading session with sideways movement and reached $1,323 by the time the article had been written.

The altcoin collapsed by more than 20% over the past seven days. At the same time, the key reason for Ethereum's sharp decline was the most long-awaited event of this year.

On September 15, the Ethereum blockchain migrated from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which does not require mining. The migration occurred as part of the Merge upgrade.

At first, ETH reacted to the positive news by growth. However, then it collapsed sharply by 8.2%.

Earlier, blockchain company Oklink recorded a high activity of miners. Therefore, mining pools dropped almost 17,000 ETH over the past week.

As for cryptocurrencies from the top 10 list by market cap, all coins except some stablecoins traded in the green zone during the past 24 hours. At the same time, XRP was top gainer (+21.57%).

At the end of last week, all cryptocurrencies, except for several stablecoins, also rose and topped the list of ten strongest digital assets. XRP coin (+49.80%) also was top gainer.

According to CoinGecko, the world's largest aggregator of data on virtual assets, in the last 24 hours Terra Classic topped the list of losers (-4.44%) among the top 100 most capitalized digital assets, while top gainers were RSR (+36.53%) and Chiliz (+13.05%).

At the end of the past week, Ravencoin (-23.47%) was the top loser among top 100 digital assets.

According to CoinGecko, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell to $902 billion over the past 24 hours.

This indicator has more than tripled since November 2021 when it exceeded the $3 trillion mark.

Crypto predictions

The digital coin market has been very unpredictable recently. Therefore, analysts give the most unrealistic forecasts about its future. Earlier, Digifox CEO Nicholas Merten said that BTC would collapse to $14,000.

The crypto expert came to this conclusion after analyzing technical and macroeconomic factors. Merten is confident that the recent BTC movement can signal the end of a 10-year bull cycle, after which the coin will cease to be a key asset compared to other commodities and stocks.

The crypto expert believes that an important macroeconomic trigger for Bitcoin's decline may also become the Fed's recent decision on monetary policy.

On Wednesday evening, the regulator increased the range of the key rate by 75 basis points to 3-3.25%, the highest level since 2008.

Digifox CEO believes that a combination of all the above mentioned technical and macroeconomic factors will soon push Bitcoin to the price bottom at $14,000. If the asset collapses to these values, its correction will total 80% of the historical record of $69,000.

As for the immediate future of Bitcoin's main rival Ethereum, Merten expects the cryptocurrency to retest the range of $800-$1,000. In the worst-case scenario, it will decline even more significantly.

However, there are also analysts who hold more positive views on the future of key cryptocurrencies. Raul Pal, a former top manager at Goldman Sachs and Real Vision CEO, said recently that digital assets would certainly grow in the next year.

The analyst explains his optimism about the cryptocurrency market in the long-term outlook by the global economic crisis and the Ethereum Merge.

Pal is sure that miners who sell altcoins every day will leave the market amid ETH transition to Proof-of-Stake algorithm. Consequently, Ethereum supply will reduce and $6 billion will disappear from monthly sales. In this case, Bitcoin's main rival will be less susceptible to inflation.

Moreover, Real Vision CEO believes that 2023 could be a very successful year for Ethereum due to permanently increasing demand, decreasing ETH supply and Bitcoin's environmental problems.